Immigration | Mother Joneshttp://www.motherjones.com/taxonomy/term/21387/all
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enThis Year's Hottest Destination for GOP Candidates Is the Mexican Borderhttp://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/mexican-border-scott-walker-2016
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<html><body><p>Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2015/03/24/greg-abbott-scott-walker-tour-mexico-texas-border/" target="_blank">will visit</a> the US-Mexico border on Friday with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Walker, who is considering a run for president, is aiming to bolster his credentials as a critic of President Obama's immigration policies. A photo wouldn't hurt either.</p>
<p>The Mexican border is now an almost mandatory pit stop for Republican politicians (especially presidential aspirants) looking for the aura of on-the-ground experience on immigration. Sure, talking to a rancher, staring across a river, and visiting a detention facility in McAllen for 30 minutes might not offer much of a big-picture perspective. But that hasn't stopped lawmakers from surveying the region in gunboats, ATVs, helicopters, and jeeps&mdash;invariably with camera crews in tow. Here's a roundup:</p>
<p><strong>Former Gov. Rick Perry: </strong>As governor of Texas for 14 years, Perry had plenty of opportunities to work on his border game face, and it shows:</p>
<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/perryboat.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>I'm on a boat. </strong>Rick Perry/<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/texasgovernor/14625630601/" target="_blank">Flickr</a></div>
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<p>That's some <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/cain-proposes-electrified-border-fence/?_r=0" target="_blank">electric-fence-with-alligator-moat</a> level intimidation. Let's zoom in:</p>
<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/perrysoon.jpg"><div class="caption">Rick Perry/<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/texasgovernor/14625630601/" target="_blank">Flickr</a></div>
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<p>Here's Perry on that same trip with Fox News host Sean Hannity <strike>on the set of <em>Rambo</em></strike> on the Rio Grande last summer:</p>
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<p>With Gov Perry <a href="http://t.co/oLaxlpwgp8">pic.twitter.com/oLaxlpwgp8</a></p>
&mdash; Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) <a href="https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/487266245910073344">July 10, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Sen. Marco Rubio:</strong> The Florida senator may take a hit from some conservatives for his support for a path to citizenship for some undocumented residents, but he demonstrated his ability to look stern while gazing into the great unknown on this visit to El Paso in 2011:</p>
<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/rubioborder.jpg"><div class="caption"><a href="http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/tour-of-us-mexico-border" target="_blank">Sen. Marco Rubio</a></div>
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<p><strong>Gov. Bobby Jindal: </strong>Last November, Louisiana's chief executive toured the Mexican border by boat and helicopter in the hopes of better understanding the child migrant crisis, which by that point had already <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-unaccompanied-minor-crisis-over-204005525--abc-news-politics.html" target="_blank">subsided</a>. Jindal's entourage didn't come away empty-handed: "In at least three locations, we saw where people were trying to make their way into Texas in an unimpeded manner," <a href="http://theadvocate.com/news/9901782-123/la-house-speaker-visits-border" target="_blank">boasted</a> one member of Jindal's group.</p>
<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/jindalboarder.jpg"><div class="caption">Gov. Bobby Jindal/<a href="https://www.facebook.com/bobbyjindal/photos/pb.51275855094.-2207520000.1427311174./10152368916365095/?type=3&amp;src=https%3A%2F%2Ffbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net%2Fhphotos-ak-xfp1%2Fv%2Ft1.0-9%2F10540831_10152368916365095_9139203650583635982_n.jpg%3Foh%3D006df25e77015efc8d2c19875515d8e0%26oe%3D5574F04B%26__gda__%3D1438147886_d369e124e8a074d8bb3219d87b8722e6&amp;size=800%2C600&amp;fbid=10152368916365095" target="_blank">Facebook</a></div>
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<p><strong>Sen. Ted Cruz:</strong> Texas' junior senator has made more visits to Iowa than he has to South Texas, his state's poorest region (<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2015/03/14/cruz-heavy-border-rhetoric-light-trips/" target="_blank">much to locals' chagrin</a>). But last year, as media interest in the child migrant crisis peaked, he took the time to <a href="http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/07/21/here-are-23-incredible-photos-from-glenns-visit-to-the-border/" target="_blank">visit the border</a> and tour a migrant processing facility in McAllen with former Fox News personality Glenn Beck:</p>
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<p style=" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;"><a href="https://instagram.com/p/qtv-jRQnPE/" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_top">Toured the border and spent time with Glenn Beck, @sentedcruz and @replouiegohmert over the weekend. Learned and saw a lot. We must secure our border. #AmericaFirst</a></p>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A photo posted by Randy Weber (@txrandy14) on <time datetime="2014-07-21T13:30:38+00:00" style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;">Jul 21, 2014 at 6:30am PDT</time></p>
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<script async defer src="//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js"></script><p>For now, the rest of the field is playing catch-up. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee visited the border in Texas during his 2008 campaign (<a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/01/huckabee-vists-mexican-border/" target="_blank">joined</a> at the Rio Grande by action star Chuck Norris) but has not been back since. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has not visited the border, although he did <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2013/may/20/rand-paul-jokes-about-bord-fence-massachusetts-and/" target="_blank">propose</a> building a fence along New Hampshire's southern border to keep out people from Massachusetts. Acclaimed pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson recently visited the Israeli border, where he <a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201504/ben-carson-tea-party" target="_blank">mistook</a> construction equipment for machine gun fire.</p>
<p>New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may be the only potential candidate who has avoided the border on principle. Although he visited Mexico City on a trade mission in 2014, he balked at extending his trip to the Rio Grande&mdash;which is very far from both Mexico City and New Jersey. "This is silliness," he told <a href="http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/09/chris_christie_heads_to_mexico_for_three-day_trade_mission.html" target="_blank">NJ.com</a>. "If I went down there and looked at it, what steps am I supposed to take exactly? Send the New Jersey National Guard there?"</p>
<p>It's not just potential Republican candidates getting in on the action. In recent years, the Rio Grande has been a frequent destination for DC's finest. In 2013, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)&mdash;who is not running for president&mdash;watched law enforcement apprehend a woman who had scaled the 18-foot border fence in Nogales. That same year, while aboard a speed boat with two Republican colleagues, Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) found a body floating in the Rio Grande. ("It was a vivid reminder that we have to secure our border and do it as quickly as possible," he told <em>Roll Call</em>.) Last year, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) traveled to McAllen accompanied by writer (and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wheres-Birth-Certificate-Eligible-President/dp/1936488299" target="_blank">birther</a>) Jerome Corsi and a film crew from conspiracy website <em>WorldNetDaily</em>. The crew showed up unannounced at a DHS detention center at midnight and was not allowed in.</p>
<p>Still, Walker is smart to get his border-fence photo-op out of the way early&mdash;it may not be there much longer. If elected president, real-estate mogul Donald Trump (who has not visited the border) has pledged to personally supervise the construction of a new barrier along the southern border that will permanently end illegal immigration. "A wall," he <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Donald-Trump-president-border-wall/2015/01/26/id/620769/" target="_blank">told</a> Iowa voters last week. "A real wall...not a wall that people walk over."</p>
<p>President Trump's 2020 challengers may have to visit the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/22/republicans-fear-mongering-over-isis-and-mexico-silent-on-canadian-border.html" target="_blank">Canadian</a> border instead.</p></body></html>
PoliticsElectionsImmigrationScott WalkerTed CruzThu, 26 Mar 2015 16:24:35 +0000Tim Murphy272376 at http://www.motherjones.comTea Party Loses Big in Today's Vote on Clean DHS Funding Billhttp://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/03/tea-party-loses-big-todays-vote-clean-dhs-funding-bill
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<html><body><p>It looks like the conventional wisdom <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/03/03/house-to-vote-on-new-bill-to-fully-fund-homeland-security/?hpid=z1" target="_blank">was correct:</a></p>
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<p>The House will vote as soon as Tuesday afternoon on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year. The measure will not target President Obama's executive actions on immigration, giving Democrats what they have long demanded and potentially enraging conservatives bent on fighting the president on immigration.</p>
<p>&hellip;The decision marks a big win for Democrats, who have long demanded that Congress pass a "clean" bill to fund DHS free of any immigration riders. For weeks, Boehner and his top deputies have refused to take up such a bill, as conservatives have demanded using the DHS debate to take on Obama's directives, which include action to prevent the deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants.</p>
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<p>I thought the most likely course was a brief DHS shutdown (a week or two) just to save face, followed by a pretty clean funding bill. But I was too pessimistic. Apparently the House leadership wasn't willing to take the PR hit that would inevitably involve.</p>
<p>I wonder if Republicans could have gotten a better deal if the tea party faction had been less bullheaded? Last week's debacle, where they torpedoed even a three-week funding extension, surely demonstrated to Boehner that he had no choice but to ignore the tea partiers entirely. They simply were never going to support anything except a full repeal of Obama's immigration actions, and that was never a remotely realistic option. The subsequent one-week extension passed only thanks to Democratic votes, and that made it clear that working with Democrats was Boehner's only real choice. And that in turn meant a clean funding bill.</p>
<p>But what if the tea partiers had signaled some willingness to compromise? Could they have passed a bill that repealed some small part of Obama's program&mdash;and that could have passed the Senate? Maybe. Instead they got nothing. I guess maybe they'd rather stick to their guns than accomplish something small but useful. That sends a signal to their base, but unfortunately for them, it also sends a signal to Boehner. And increasingly, that signal is that he has no choice but to stop paying attention to their demands. There's nothing in it for Boehner, is there?</p></body></html>
Kevin DrumCongressImmigrationTue, 03 Mar 2015 20:00:42 +0000Kevin Drum271286 at http://www.motherjones.comImmigration Fight Is a Loser Because Republican Hearts Aren't Really Into Ithttp://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/immigration-fight-loser-because-republican-hearts-arent-really-it
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<html><body><p>Our story so far: Last year President Obama announced a series of executive actions on immigration. Conservatives went ballistic and threatened to refuse to pass a budget&mdash;thus shutting down the government&mdash;unless the budget defunded the immigration plan. They eventually gave in on that, but only because they were promised a second bite at the apple. The resulting compromise funded every department except the Department of Homeland Security, which <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/images/Blog_Immigration_Sign.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 0px 15px 30px;">was given only short-term funding. That now has to be reauthorized, and this time around conservatives are threatening to refuse to pass a DHS budget&mdash;thus shutting down the department&mdash;unless it defunds the immigration plan.</p>
<p>But Democrats have been unified in refusing to approve a budget that defunds the immigration plan, and now Republicans are stuck. Shutting down DHS would be a PR disaster, and they haven't really managed to get the public riled up about Obama's immigration plan. Why not? Dave Weigel reports that the problem is simple. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-26/immigration-foes-have-numbers-but-no-strategy?wpmm=1&amp;wpisrc=nl_wonk" target="_blank">Their hearts aren't really in it:</a></p>
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<p>"Republicans have not done a particularly effective job of communicating what they want here," said Ira Mehlman, FAIR's national media director. <strong>"They let the president get out there first and explain his position with public events. I don&rsquo;t understand why they haven&rsquo;t turned the tables on the president and capitalized. It is baffling."</strong></p>
<p>And it's less than conservatives did in a comparable standoff, the summer 2013 fight over whether or not to fund the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Initially, Republican leaders in the House had wanted to split the defunding from the must-pass appropriations bill. They were denied the votes for that from the GOP conference. At the same time, the conservative Heritage Action was hosting town halls around the country, putting pressure on Republicans to kill the ACA. Some members of the Senate, most famously Texas Senator Ted Cruz, joined them.</p>
<p><strong>There have been no comparable Heritage Action rallies in the weekends or recesses of 2015.</strong> "This fight was set up by leadership when they opted for the cromnibus strategy," explained Heritage Action president Michael Needham in an email, "and it is a fight nearly every Republican promised their constituents both on the campaign trail and then again in December. In other words, it has been set up for months on the ground they chose."</p>
<p>Heritage Action will key-vote the DHS bill, knuckle-rapping the Republicans who don't go all the way to de-fund the executive orders.<strong> But it has not organized opposition to a "clean bill." Neither, really, has [Ted] Cruz. He spent very little of last week's recess talking about the coming DHS fight.</strong></p>
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<p>So what happens next? Perhaps Republicans allow DHS to be shut down for a symbolic few days and then allow a vote on a clean funding bill that will pass the House with a few Republican votes and a lot of Democratic votes. Because basically most of them don't really care.</p>
<p>As well they shouldn't. The truth is that they shot themselves in the foot from the very start by going ballistic over Obama's actions. The thing is, Obama didn't really do all that much. Before he acted, we had 11 million undocumented immigrants who weren't going to be deported. Afterward, we had 11 million undocumented immigrants who weren't going to be deported&mdash;but would be given temporary documentation that officially protected them from the deportation that wasn't going to happen anyway. Conservatives could have just grumbled and let it go, but instead they gave Obama a huge win by making it seem as if his actions were a major victory in the immigration wars. It's been a boon for both Obama and the Democratic Party, and huge headache for the Republican Party.</p>
<p>It's too late now to back away from the relentless claims that Obama has acted like a lawless, Constitution-shredding tyrant over immigration, but Republicans have to figure out something. The public might or might not approve of how Obama implemented his reforms, but they're fine with the reforms themselves. Aside from a few tea party dead enders, there's just no widespread outrage to tap into.</p>
<p>So instead of spending their first few months in control of Congress doing something, Republicans are fighting dumb battles that Obama has suckered them into. The faster they get out from under that rock, the better off they'll be.</p></body></html>
Kevin DrumCongressImmigrationThu, 26 Feb 2015 17:06:22 +0000Kevin Drum271001 at http://www.motherjones.comDHS Funding Fight Is Going Down to the Wirehttp://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/dhs-funding-fight-going-down-wire
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<html><body><p>We're getting down to the wire in the funding fight over the Department of Homeland Security: DHS will shut down this weekend if funding isn't approved by Friday. In the Senate, Mitch McConnell wants to simply hold two separate votes: one to fund DHS and another to repeal President Obama's recent immigration actions. But tea partiers in the House are adamantly opposed to that: they want to keep the two things together in one bill, which they hope will force Democrats to cave in and kill the immigration plan. In reality, it will only produce deadlock in the Senate and a shutdown of DHS that Republicans will be blamed for. So what's John Boehner to do? <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/02/25/morning-plum-poor-john-boehner-is-helpless-in-face-of-conservative-rage/" target="_blank">Greg Sargent comments:</a></p>
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<p>We&rsquo;ve seen this particular thriller a number of times already. Here&rsquo;s how it always goes: We are told there&rsquo;s no way Boehner would ever dare move must-pass legislation with a lot of Democrats. He&rsquo;s stuck! Then pressure builds and builds, and Boehner does end up passing something with a lot of Democrats. Last I checked, he&rsquo;s still Speaker.</p>
<p>....<strong>The fact that Boehner has the mere option of passing clean funding with the help of a lot of Democrats is rarely even mentioned. </strong>You can read article after article about this whole showdown and not be informed of that basic fact. Thus, the actual reason we&rsquo;re stuck in this crisis &mdash; Boehner is delaying the moment where he does pass something with Dems for as long as possible &mdash; goes oddly unmentioned. Yet recent history suggests that Boehner himself knows this is how it will end, and that all of this drama won&rsquo;t change the outcome.</p>
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<p>Probably so. After all, the only thing that changed in the last election was control of the Senate, and Senate Republicans are willing to compromise. The House is probably going to have to go down that road eventually too.</p>
<p>But my guess is that they're going to shut down DHS for a while first. Boehner has made it pretty clear that he feels like he needs to demonstrate his conservative bona fides at the beginning of this new session of Congress, and that means holding out as long as he can. It's a waste of time, and it's going to hurt Republican efforts to work on other legislation, but that's life. Symbols are important, and Boehner needs to show whose side he's on. There's a good chance this will last a couple of weeks before it gets resolved.</p></body></html>
Kevin DrumCongressImmigrationWed, 25 Feb 2015 16:31:05 +0000Kevin Drum270916 at http://www.motherjones.comLast Week’s Texas Prison Uprising Wasn't a Surprise: Inmates Had Threatened to Riot for Monthshttp://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/willacy-prison-uprising-immigrants
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<html><body><p>Wielding pipes as weapons, 2,000 inmates at Willacy County Correctional Center in Raymondville, Texas, broke out of their dormitories, started fires, and seized control of the federal prison on Friday. Correctional officers responded with tear gas, but it still took them two days to subdue the uprising. Now all the prison's inmates&mdash;mostly immigrants who were caught reentering<strong> </strong>the United States after being deported&mdash;are being relocated to other prisons.</p>
<p>This is at least the second protest at Willacy in two years, and prison reform advocates say they're not surprised. They describe the facility as filthy, neglectful of its inmates' health, and in some cases outright abusive. "A lot of people get very upset and angry," <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=7" target="_blank">one prisoner told investigators from the American Civil Liberties Union</a> (ACLU) last year. "Sometimes they become so frustrated that they even speak of burning down the tents. But what's the point? They'd build them back up." What exactly is going in Raymondville?</p>
<p><strong>What kind of prison are we talking about?</strong><br>
Willacy is part of a network of 13 "Criminal Alien Requirement" prisons: privately run facilities that contract with the government to detain noncitizens, most of whom have been convicted of immigration offenses. As of February 19, CAR prisons held <a href="http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp" target="_blank">more than 24,000</a> inmates&mdash;2,800 of them at Willacy. The prison's Kevlar tent dormitories&mdash;in which prisoners are said to be so tightly packed that when they lie in their bunks, their feet can touch the bunk next to them&mdash;have earned it the nickname "Tent City" among locals.</p>
<p>When the Utah-based Management and Training Corporation opened Willacy in 2006, it held people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement who were awaiting deportation. But county officials were unhappy that the center was never at capacity, which kept revenue lower than they had hoped. Following reports of abuse and suffering at Willacy, including <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/race-multicultural/lost-in-detention/transcript-11/" target="_blank">guard-on-inmate sexual violence</a> and <a href="http://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/dfra-cac/willacy1.pdf" target="_blank">maggots in the food</a>, <a href="http://www.chron.com/news/article/ICE-will-relocate-crowded-detention-center-1689843.php" target="_blank">ICE relocated its detainees in 2011</a>.</p>
<p>MTC then signed a contract with the Bureau of Prisons. The facility now holds people with immigration issues who are also serving time for federal crimes. Some have drug convictions, but in many cases their crime is crossing the border without a visa&mdash;an offense that US officials <a href="http://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=4" target="_blank">increasingly prosecute with prison time, not just deportation</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Did things improve after the new contract?</strong><br>
Not according to the ACLU. Last year, it released a report on Willacy and the other four CAR prisons in Texas. Carl Takei, one of the ACLU lawyers who worked on the report, called last week's uprising "a predictable consequence" of the state in which he found Willacy in late 2013. "The overwhelming impression that I came away with was a near-universal sense of despair," he told me.</p>
<p>The conditions Takei and other ACLU investigators say they encountered at the prison included:</p>
<ul><li>Disgusting living quarters: Inmates' clothes were washed in <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=86" target="_blank">the same laundry load</a> as mops and cleaning equipment, insects and spiders <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=86" target="_blank">crawled into the tents</a> and bit people, and raw sewage <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=87" target="_blank">overflowed</a> from toilets.</li>
<li>Excessive solitary confinement: Inmates were placed in the hole simply for <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=89" target="_blank">requesting new shoes or food</a>. Prisoners also reported that being in solitary drove them to hurt themselves or attempt suicide. "People could be heard screaming and kicking their doors all day," one man said.</li>
<li>Lack of basic medical care: If you have a toothache at Willacy, <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=90" target="_blank">the only treatment you can get is extraction</a>. Inmates described going to the medical staff for a diagnosis, only to be <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=90" target="_blank">handed Tylenol and sent away</a>. One man was told he had hepatitis C, but two years later <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=92" target="_blank">he had yet to receive any treatment for it</a>.</li>
</ul><p><strong>Is that what set off last week's uprising?</strong><br>
Outrage over inadequate health care sparked last week's protest, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/21/willacy-county-prison-tak_n_6727930.html" target="_blank">according to the Associated Press</a>. <a href="http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/local_news/article_43d43e6a-b986-11e4-942f-1f3bc5198671.html" target="_blank">On Friday morning</a>, prisoners refused to do chores or eat breakfast. Around 1 p.m., inmates broke out of their housing and occupied the rec yard, and shortly after they set fire to at least three of the Kevlar domes. Guards fired tear gas at the inmates, and county police <a href="http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/local_news/article_43d43e6a-b986-11e4-942f-1f3bc5198671.html" target="_blank">drove armored vehicles</a> into the prison. Eventually <a href="http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/willacy-prison-uprising-nears-resolution-feds-prepare-to-move-inmates/article_d9391032-ba3c-11e4-9362-4f8d177fea40.html" target="_blank">the FBI took over negotiations</a>, which continued through Saturday night.</p>
<p>MTC <a href="http://fusion.net/story/52778/two-day-uprising-at-immigrant-prison-was-predictable-reform-advocates-say/" target="_blank">maintains</a> that its prisoners "receive timely, quality health care." But Takei says medical treatment is an issue across the board at CAR prisons. In 2009, inmates at Reeves County Detention Center in Texas burned down part of the prison after <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=66" target="_blank">Jesus Manuel Galindo died of a seizure while in solitary confinement</a>. In 2012, prisoners at another facility in Natchez, Mississippi, started a protest over health care that <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/14/686361/fbi-agent-deadly-riot-in-corporate-run-prison-due-to-complaints-of-inadequate-food-and-health-care/" target="_blank">left one guard dead and 20 injured</a>.</p>
<p>Inmates at Willacy have protested other issues in recent years, too. In 2013, 30 prisoners occupied the rec yard <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/060614-aclu-car-reportonline.pdf#page=28" target="_blank">after guards ignored their complaints about overflowing toilets</a>.</p>
<p><strong>So what happens now?</strong><br>
The uprising left parts of the prison "uninhabitable," <a href="http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/weather-bogs-down-inmate-transfers-from-willacy-prison/article_a043e82a-bbd0-11e4-a8f5-93279b33f80f.html" target="_blank">according to the Bureau of Prisons</a>. Inmates are being transferred to other facilities (including, but not exclusively, CAR prisons)<strong> </strong>so authorities can assess the extent of the damage. About 720 have been moved so far, although <a href="http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/weather-bogs-down-inmate-transfers-from-willacy-prison/article_a043e82a-bbd0-11e4-a8f5-93279b33f80f.html" target="_blank">cold weather is slowing the evacuation</a>. Officials are unsure how long Willacy will remain closed.</p></body></html>
PoliticsCrime and JusticeImmigrationTop StoriesWed, 25 Feb 2015 11:00:09 +0000Rebecca Cohen270811 at http://www.motherjones.comA Judge Just Blocked Obama's Immigration Plans. Here's Why You Shouldn't Take His Ruling Seriously.http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/court-ruling-against-obamas-immigration-action-just-judicial-theater
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<html><body><p>A federal judge in Brownsville, Texas, has issued an injunction against President Obama's recent immigration actions. I don't take this even slightly seriously. To see why, all you have to do is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/us/obama-immigration-policy-halted-by-federal-judge-in-texas.html" target="_blank">read to the end of the <em>New York Times</em> account:</a></p>
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<p>Judge Hanen, who was appointed in 2002 by President George W. Bush, has excoriated the Obama administration&rsquo;s immigration policies in several unusually outspoken rulings....At a hearing on Jan. 15, Judge Hanen said Brownsville, which sits on the border with Mexico, was an appropriate venue for the suit because <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_anti_immigration.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 0px 15px 30px;">its residents see the impact of immigration every day. <strong>&ldquo;Talking to anyone in Brownsville about immigration is like talking to Noah about the flood,&rdquo; Judge Hanen said.</strong></p>
<p>In a long and colorful opinion last August, Judge Hanen departed from the issue at hand to accuse the Obama administration of adopting a deportation policy that <strong>&ldquo;endangers America&rdquo; and was &ldquo;an open invitation to the most dangerous criminals in society.&rdquo;</strong></p>
<p>The case involved a Salvadoran immigrant with a long criminal record whom Judge Hanen had earlier sent to prison for five years. Instead of deporting the man after he served his sentence, an immigration judge in Los Angeles ordered him released, a decision Judge Hanen found &ldquo;incredible.&rdquo; <strong>Citing no specific evidence, he surmised that the administration had adopted a broader policy of releasing such criminals.</strong></p>
<p>While acknowledging that he had no jurisdiction to alter policy, <strong>Judge Hanen said he relied on his &ldquo;firsthand, in-the-trenches knowledge of the border situation&rdquo; and &ldquo;at least a measurable level of common sense&rdquo; to reach his conclusions about the case.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Judge Andrew Hanen so obviously hates both Obama and his immigration actions that no one is going to take his decision seriously. It's a polemic, not a proper court ruling. The case will continue its dreary way through Hanen's docket, but I imagine an appeals court will stay the injunction pretty quickly, and then overrule his inevitable final ruling in short order. The right-wing plaintiffs in this case may have thought they were being clever in venue shopping to get the case before Hanen, but it won't do them any good. It might even backfire, given just how transparently political Hanen's ruling is.</p>
<p>This story makes for a good headline, but it probably means little in real life. At most we'll have a delay of a few weeks in implementing Obama's immigration orders.</p></body></html>
Kevin DrumImmigrationTue, 17 Feb 2015 16:02:29 +0000Kevin Drum270441 at http://www.motherjones.com"Children Do Not Migrate—They Flee": Striking Photos From Poverty-Ravaged Guatemalahttp://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/02/child-migrants-guatemala-photos-katie-orlinsky
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<html><body><p>In October 2013, I traveled to Guatemala's <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/unaccompanied-kids-immigrants-deported-guatemala" target="_blank">western highlands</a> to report on the <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/child-migrants-surge-unaccompanied-central-america" target="_blank">surge of children migrating</a> from Central America to the United States. The largely indigenous region was more or less unchanged from when I'd lived in a village near the Guatemala-Mexico border in 2006, or when I'd returned to do graduate work there in 2009: It was poor, susceptible to natural disasters, and full of families with relatives living in the United States.</p>
<p>Photographer Katie Orlinsky visited many of the same places that I did, and her evocative work from Guatemala City and Quetzaltenango, the unofficial capital of the highlands, illuminates the poverty that continues to push children and families north. <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/unaccompanied-child-migrants-surge-mexico-violence" target="_blank">Recent data suggests</a> that while far fewer Hondurans and Salvadorans have been arriving at the US border, the number of Guatemalans has dipped only slightly. As one Guatemalan migrant shelter official told Orlinsky, "Children do not migrate&mdash;they flee."</p>
<p><em>All photos by Katie Orlinsky for <a href="http://tooyoungtowed.org/" target="_blank">Too Young to Wed,</a> in collaboration with <a href="http://www.humanityunited.org/" target="_blank">Humanity United</a>.</em></p>
<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_002.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>A young boy gathers wood in Quetzaltenango. The area has one of the highest levels of child migration in the country. Many of the children are economic refugees. In addition, a large population of Guatemalans from the area are already living in the United States and Mexico. </strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_006.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>Paula (right) does not go to school and instead works washing clothing with female family members in the town of Los Duraznales.</strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_008.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>A bus in Los Duraznales</strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_010.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>A 16-year-old child migrant stands outside a government-run shelter in Quetzaltenango. The teenager was caught by the Mexican authorities and deported a day earlier. She was on her way to Ohio to meet her mother, who left 12 years ago. </strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_012.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>A bus leaves for the Guatemala-Mexico border from the bus terminal in the largest market in Guatemala City. </strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_015.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>A four-year-old stands outside her home in Quetzaltenango with her aunts. Along with her mother, she attempted to migrate to the United States, but they were caught in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico. Family members say they were imprisoned and abused before being deported back to Guatemala. The girl's mother continues to be unable to eat or speak after the experience.</strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_016.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>The Alonso Lorenzo sisters, from left to right: Romina, 12, Alysa Karina, 16, and Isabel, 8, in Concepci&oacute;n Chiquirichapa. The sisters are orphans; their 14-year-old sister recently migrated to the United States, where she works to help support them. They currently live with their aunt in a cramped two-room home. All three sisters hope to migrate to the United States as soon as they can.</strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_017.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>Romina Alonso Lorenzo, 12, washes dishes at her aunt's home in Concepci&oacute;n Chiquirichapa. </strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_019.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>Romina and Isabel</strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_020.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>Alysa Karina, 16, prepares atole at her aunt's home. She does not attend school. </strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_022.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>The youngest Alonso Lorenzo sisters attend the Escuela Oficial Rural Mixta al Telena. Nearly half of the school's students have family in the United States. </strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_024.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>Romina at school</strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_025.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>Many students miss days or months of school in order to work. It is common to see children of varied ages in the same grade.</strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_026.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>A girl studies against a wall in Guatemala City. Gangs and violence are one of the leading causes for child migration from Guatemala. </strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_028.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>Jonathan, 13, works in a Guatemala City cemetery cutting and arranging flowers. He says he goes to school in the afternoons. </strong></div>
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<div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_030.jpg"><div class="caption"><strong>Thirteen-year-old Adonias sells garlic at the largest market in Guatemala City. </strong></div>
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MediaPhoto EssaysImmigrationInternationalchild migrantsWed, 18 Feb 2015 14:53:01 +0000— Photos by Katie Orlinsky; Text by Ian Gordon270401 at http://www.motherjones.comThere Will Be Fewer Child Migrants This Year, But the Crisis Isn't Overhttp://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/unaccompanied-child-migrants-surge-mexico-violence
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<html><body><p>It was right around this time last year that sources in South Texas began telling me that an expected surge of <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/child-migrants-surge-unaccompanied-central-america" target="_blank">unaccompanied child migrants</a> was going to be much larger than previously anticipated. They were right: The number of kids crossing the US-Mexico border <a href="http://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/BP%20Total%20Monthly%20UACs%20by%20Sector%2C%20FY10.-FY14.pdf" target="_blank">skyrocketed in 2014</a>, and the border crisis was soon front-page news. But the numbers have been dropping since last fall, and according to new projections, they're on pace to recede even further in 2015.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://borderfactcheck.tumblr.com/post/110671779878/is-the-unaccompanied-minors-crisis-over" target="_blank">projections</a> from the think tank <a href="http://www.wola.org/" target="_blank">Washington Office on Latin America</a>, around 41,000 child migrants traveling alone will be caught by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the 2015 fiscal year, a 39 percent decrease from last year. WOLA's data also suggests that border agents will nab more than 56,000 migrant families (typically a mother traveling with children), a 16 percent drop from 2014.</p>
<p>The number of apprehensions is proportional to the number of people crossing the border.<strong> </strong>The predictions are extrapolated from CBP data and seasonal migration trends. Adam Isacson, WOLA's senior associate for regional security policy, acknowledged that the numbers are "very tentative" and that the sample sizes were small, but that 2015 is still on pace to see the second-biggest influx ever of kids traveling alone.</p>
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<p>What accounts for these projected decreases in the two groups of migrants that made up last year's border crunch? After all, things haven't gotten any better in Central America's so-called Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras). "The situation in Central America hasn't changed in the last six months," says Maureen Meyer, WOLA's senior associate for Mexico and migrant rights. "So you're going to certainly see people fleeing their homes out of desperation and migrants continuing to be willing to run the gauntlet of risk they could face in Mexico, because they figure the risk is worth it if you could die in your home the next day anyway."</p>
<div class="inline inline-right" style="display: table; width: 1%"><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/02/child-migrants-guatemala-photos-katie-orlinsky" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/Guatemala_019225.jpg"></a>
<div class="caption"><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/02/child-migrants-guatemala-photos-katie-orlinsky" target="_blank"><strong>"Children Do Not Migrate&mdash;They Flee": Striking Photos From Poverty-Ravaged Guatemala </strong></a></div>
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<p>CBP has trumpeted the anti-migration <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/07/unaccompanied-child-migrants-us-government-tv-ads" target="_blank">ad campaign</a> it ran last year, but few experts believe it had much impact. Instead, they argue, the decline in migrants can be attributed to the increasing difficulty of making the roughly<strong> </strong>1,500-mile journey from Central America through Mexico. In July, for example, Mexican officials <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/07/mexico-central-american-migrants-train-beast" target="_blank">closed off</a> access to <em>La Bestia</em> (the Beast), the freight train that runs from southern Mexico to the US border. Migrants often sneaked rides on La Bestia because they didn't have the money to pay smugglers. Keeping them off the train has made the journey north more expensive and potentially more dangerous: A recent article in Mexico's <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/2015/migrantes-recorren-rutas-mas-peligrosas-1072758.html" target="_blank"><em>El Universal</em></a> newspaper detailed how migrants are walking increasingly risky routes or taking $250 boat rides to avoid detection in the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca.</p>
<p>Shutting down La Bestia was just part of Mexico's new crackdown on Central American migrants. Earlier last summer, President Enrique Pe&ntilde;a Nieto announced an initiative called <a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/mexico%E2%80%99s-southern-border-strategy-programa-frontera-sur" target="_blank">Programa Frontera Sur</a> (Southern Border Program) to address the country's porous border with Guatemala. Meyer says that while the particulars of this plan are still vague, migrant shelter workers in southern Mexico have reported seeing more immigration agents patrolling the region and cracking down on safe houses for migrants.</p>
<p>The Mexican government reports that it deported some 104,000 people to the Northern Triangle<strong> </strong>last year, a 34 percent increase from 2013. (Given the <a href="http://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/americas/mexico/introduction.html" target="_blank">poor conditions</a> in Mexico's immigration detention centers, Meyer says many detained migrants choose deportation and another shot at heading north.) The uptick has troubled immigrant advocates, who worry that Mexico isn't applying its generous refugee and humanitarian aid laws&mdash;and is turning around Central American migrants without regard for their safety in their home countries.<strong> </strong>"That's our biggest area of concern," said Jennifer Podkul of the <a href="http://womensrefugeecommission.org/programs/migrant-rights/unaccompanied-children" target="_blank">Women's Refugee Commission</a>. "Are they returning legitimate refugee seekers&mdash;people seeking asylum&mdash;before they even get here?"</p>
<p>In a January 6 meeting with Pe&ntilde;a Nieto in Washington, President Obama <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/01/06/president-obama-and-president-pe-nieto-mexico-meet-white-house" target="_blank">praised</a> Mexico's efforts along its border with Guatemala. US officials have repeatedly stressed that border's strategic importance; several years ago, border czar Alan Bersin <a href="http://latinalista.com/general/historic-partnership-agreements-signed" target="_blank">said</a>, "The Guatemalan border with Chiapas is now our southern border." The White House's 2016 foreign aid budget request earmarks money for bolstering Mexican border enforcement.</p>
<p>Along the US-Mexico border, the feds are intent on avoiding a repeat of last year's border catastrophe, including those <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/unaccompanied-child-migrants-border-patrol-screening" target="_blank">visuals</a> of little kids piled together beneath space blankets in fenced-off warehouses. Meghan Johnson, the managing attorney at the <a href="http://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_services/immigration/projects_initiatives/south_texas_pro_bono_asylum_representation_project_probar/immigrant_childrensassistanceprojecticap.html" target="_blank">ProBAR Children's Project</a>, the American Bar Association's pro bono legal defense program in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, says that federal shelters for unaccompanied minors are currently at 30 percent capacity and that officials are bracing for an influx of kids in the late spring and early summer. The federal government has streamlined its process for getting detained kids out of Border Patrol holding facilities, and now there are two large processing facilities to temporarily hold child migrants before they are placed in shelters or reunified with their families in the states. And Immigration and Customs Enforcement just opened its <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/family-detention-artesia-dilley-immigration-central-america" target="_blank">largest-ever detention facility</a>, in Dilley, Texas, which will only hold "family-unit" detainees, i.e., mothers traveling with their children. (For more, read the <em>New York Times Magazine</em>'s recent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/magazine/the-shame-of-americas-family-detention-camps.html?_r=0" target="_blank">cover story</a> on family detention.)</p>
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<p>Two weeks ago, in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/opinion/joe-biden-a-plan-for-central-america.html" target="_blank"><em>New York Times </em>op-ed</a> announcing the White House's $1 billion aid proposal for El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, Vice President Joe Biden wrote that "if the political will exists, there is no reason Central America cannot become the next great success story of the Western Hemisphere." In the meantime, it appears the issues that sparked last year's border surge&mdash;gang violence, abject poverty, regional instability&mdash;will continue to force tens of thousands of unaccompanied children and families to seek refuge in the United States this year.</p>
<p>Still, now that the numbers have dropped from their historic highs last year, it's a good bet that the kids and families won't make headlines anytime soon. "We won't see those images again of kids backed up at the border," Podkul says, "but that doesn't mean there's no crisis in Central America anymore."</p>
<p><em>Clarification: A previous version of this article suggested that the Office of Refugee Resettlement ran the two border processing facilities, which are run by CBP.</em></p></body></html>
PoliticsChartsImmigrationInternationalTop Storieschild migrantsFri, 13 Feb 2015 11:00:08 +0000Ian Gordon269861 at http://www.motherjones.comGOP Lawsuit Says Obama's Immigration Plan Costs States Big Bucks. That's Wrong.http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/marriage-licenses-obama-undocumented-immigrants-lawsuit
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<html><body><p><strong><em>Update (2/17/15):</em></strong><em> On Monday evening, Andrew Hanen, a federal district court judge in Texas, issued an <a href="http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/texas_immigration_20150216.pdf" target="_blank">injunction</a> temporarily blocking President Obama's new immigration policies. The new Department of Homeland Security guidelines, which Obama announced in November, would give deportation relief to up to 5 million some undocumented residents, some brought to the US as children and some who are parents of citizens and legal permanent residents. The Obama administration will ask the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Hanen's injunction, according to the </em>Washington Post<em>.</em></p>
<p><em>The 26 mostly Republican-run states challenging Obama's actions argued that protecting some undocumented people from deportation would do the states irreparable harm&mdash;mainly by costing them money. Hanen seemed to accept that argument&mdash;which the story below shows is a weak one&mdash;in his order. "Armed with Social Security cards and employment authorization documents," beneficiaries of deferred action under the administration's new guidelines could seek additional licenses (like professional and marriage licenses), Hanen wrote. </em></p>
<p><em>Lawyers for the Obama administration had argued that the challengers' claims were baseless. Monday's injunction was not just a setback because Hanen put a hold on implementing the new policies, but because he also acknowledged that the states' challenge could prevail on the merits&mdash;a situation that could lead to months, if not years, of litigation as the case winds its way up the judicial ladder on appeal.</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The mostly GOP-run states suing to block President Barack Obama's immigration actions have a <a href="https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/_file/Law-Professor-Letter.pdf" target="_blank">shaky</a> legal argument. But politically, their rationale sounds even worse.</p></body></html>
<p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/politics/2015/02/marriage-licenses-obama-undocumented-immigrants-lawsuit"><strong><em>Continue Reading &raquo;</em></strong></a></p>PoliticsImmigrationTop StoriesThu, 12 Feb 2015 14:45:05 +0000Thu Feb. 12, 2015 9:45 AM EST | Updated Tue Feb. 17, 2015 1:00 PM EST269746 at http://www.motherjones.comObama Suckered Republicans Into an Immigration Trap—And They Charged Right Inhttp://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/obama-suckered-republicans-immigration-trap%E2%80%94and-they-charged-right
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<html><body><p>Ed Kilgore notes that Latino approval of the Republican Party&mdash;already low in 2013&mdash;plummeted even further in 2014 when they spent all year pandering to their base and blocking any chance at some kind of comprehensive immigration reform. <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_02/another_latino_debacle054029.php" target="_blank">And it's gotten even worse since then:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>The marginally improved performance of the GOP among Latinos in the 2014 midterms probably tempted some to think disgruntlement with Obama would trump estrangement from the elephant party. But since then, of course, <strong>the president's executive action on immigration provided fresh impetus to "deport 'em all" messaging,</strong> and the jockeying for position during the Invisible Primary for 2016 is not going to help.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don't have any big point to make here. I just wanted to highlight the passage above. In the same way that, say, Osama bin Laden wanted two things on 9/11&mdash;to attack the US <em>and</em> to provoke an insane counterreaction&mdash;President Obama wanted to accomplish two things with his immigration actions. Obviously he thought it was the right thing to do. Beyond that, though, he wanted to gain Latino support for Democrats <em>and</em> provoke an insane counterreaction from Republicans. He succeeded brilliantly on both counts. Republicans fell swiftly into his trap, and they show all signs of falling even further as primary season heats up. By the time 2016 rolls around, even a moderate guy like Jeb Bush is going to be so tainted by Republican craziness on immigration that he'll get virtually no support from the Latino community.</p>
<p>It didn't have to be this way. Republicans could have responded in a more measured way that would have blunted Obama's actions. Instead they let themselves get suckered. Obama must be laughing his ass off right about now.</p></body></html>
Kevin Drum2016 ElectionsImmigrationObamaThu, 05 Feb 2015 16:33:57 +0000Kevin Drum269686 at http://www.motherjones.comWill Republicans Shut Down the Department of Homeland Security?http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/will-republicans-shut-down-department-homeland-security
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<html><body><p>Paul Waldman notes today that Republicans have made a hash out of their first month in control of Congress, and I'd say he's right about that. They keep getting distracted by events&mdash;executive actions from President Obama, vaccination pratfalls, infighting over symbolic votes, etc.&mdash;and that's prevented them from doing much to advance their real agenda. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/02/04/is-it-too-early-to-call-the-new-gop-congress-a-failure/" target="_blank">Here's one example:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Republicans tried to pass a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security and repeal President Obama&rsquo;s executive actions on immigration. Senate Democrats filibustered it, and in its current form it&rsquo;s dead, meaning we&rsquo;re headed for another shutdown mini-crisis. <strong>Spoiler alert: Republicans will lose, caving in and funding the department.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hmmm. Although I agree with Waldman in general, Brian Beutler makes an interesting argument that he might be wrong in this particular case. <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120964/republican-homeland-security-shutdown-spirals-out-control" target="_blank">Maybe Republicans <em>won't</em> cave on the Homeland Security funding bill:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>There&rsquo;s something unique and confounding about the very premise of using DHS funding as a bargaining chip, and it scrambles the customary pattern....Unlike other GOP threats, this one isn&rsquo;t an unsupportably dangerous, but canny bluff. To many casual spectators, threatening not to increase the debt limit sounded meaningless, or perhaps even like a good idea, when in fact the consequences of a collision with the debt limit would have been catastrophic. <strong>Threatening to shut down the Department of Homeland Security, by contrast, sounds incredibly reckless, but has little weight behind it. As a national security bureaucracy, nearly all of DHS&rsquo; functions and employees are exempt from the shutdown protocols that delay Social Security checks and require national parks to close.</strong></p>
<p>It&rsquo;s the easiest threat in the world for Democrats to demagogue but one that Republicans can make without courting genuine devastation, and many of them are thus catching on to the possibility that the political damage wouldn&rsquo;t stick. Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican who heads the Senate Homeland Security committee is prepared to see the fight through past the deadline, precisely because &ldquo;only 13.6 percent of DHS employees were furloughed&rdquo; in the last shutdown. &ldquo;[T]he national security aspects, the aspects of the department that keeps America safe, are continuing to function no matter what happens in this very dysfunctional place.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don't know what to think of this, but it's an interesting argument. Republicans may end up deciding that they can go ahead and shut down DHS without suffering any real damage. After all, the stuff people care about&mdash;the <em>Security</em> part of the Department of Homeland Security&mdash;would continue running regardless. So the public either wouldn't care much, or might even side with Republicans. It all depends on what functions are lost during a shutdown and how much opposition Republicans can gin up against Obama's immigration actions.</p>
<p>And that's a bit of a wild card. So far, Obama's immigration plan has polled pretty well, but that could change once it becomes a political hot potato and people really start paying attention to the demagoguery from the Republican side. We might find out that support for the immigration plan is wide but very, very shallow.</p>
<p>Of course, even a fight over DHS would be a distraction for Republicans, something they really weren't planning on spending time on. So if it weren't for the fact that compromise is considered basically treasonous in the tea party era, I'd say that some kind of modest compromise might be possible here. And who knows? It might still be. Despite all the sound and fury, the hard truth is that none of this is really all that big a deal.</p>
<p>But it might become one, even if Republican leaders would prefer otherwise. That's the downside of giving tea partiers control of their agenda, isn't it?</p></body></html>
Kevin DrumCongressImmigrationWed, 04 Feb 2015 18:39:27 +0000Kevin Drum269606 at http://www.motherjones.comRepublicans Say Obama's Immigration Actions Are Making You Less Safe. So Why Are Cops All for Them?http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/obama-executive-action-immigration-public-safety
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<html><body><p>"Human trafficking"! "Drug cartels"! "Humanitarian crisis"! These are the public safety nightmares that will result from President Barack Obama's decision to to allow around 5 million undocumented residents to live in the United States without fear of deportation&mdash;at least according to the 26 mostly GOP-controlled states suing to block Obama's <a href="http://www.nilc.org/dapa%26daca.html" target="_blank">action.</a> According to the states, letting some unauthorized immigrants remain in the country will set off a new wave of illegal immigration, causing criminal activity to skyrocket, increasing human trafficking, bolstering "the business of the [drug] cartels," and exacerbating "the risks and dangers&hellip;[of] organized crime," they argued in a brief filed in federal court in Texas.</p>
<p>The public safety argument is a key pillar of the states' case. To win a court order&mdash;called a preliminary injunction&mdash;blocking Obama's actions while their lawsuit moves through the legal system, the states have to show that Obama's actions would cause them irreparable damage. Claiming that deferring deportation for millions would damage public safety is one way the states are trying to prove they'd be harmed by Obama's immigration actions.</p>
<p>But local law enforcement officials&mdash;including many in the very states suing the administration&mdash;say this part of states' argument is bunk: They believe Obama's executive actions will boost public safety. In a <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/252438698/Law-Enforcement-Amicus-2015-01-12" target="_blank">brief</a> filed in support of the president's action, a professional association of police chiefs and sheriffs, a research organization dedicated to improved policing, and 27 local law enforcement officials argued that undocumented residents are less likely to report crimes to the police or testify against a criminal for fear of being deported&mdash;making it harder for police to find criminals and put them away when they do.</p>
<p>The same logic applies to combating human trafficking&mdash;one of the public safety dangers the states cite.</p>
<p>"What I would say with regard to human trafficking is that once these folks can come out of the shadows and once they don't have the threat of deportation hanging over their head, they can't be victimized as easily as they're being victimized now, whether it's domestic violence, whether it's forced prostitution," says Thomas Manger, police chief in Montgomery County, Maryland, who serves as the president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, one of the law enforcement groups supporting the administration in the lawsuit. "The control that the bad guys have over many of these young women&mdash;in many cases young women&mdash;is the threat of deportation."</p>
<p>The police chiefs base their argument on studies showing undocumented residents' unwillingness to come into contact with police, even when they are victims of crime. This makes undocumented people targets for criminals, the cops argue. As an example, they cite one study showing that&nbsp; immigrants granted a special visa under 2000's Violence Against Women Act showed increased rates of reporting crimes and cooperating with police. Finally, the law enforcement officers' brief notes that giving undocumented residents drivers' licenses improves public safety, as studies show that "unlicensed drivers are much more hazardous on the road."</p>
<p>Of the 27 police chiefs who signed onto the brief, many are in states that are challenging Obama's actions&mdash;putting them at odds with top GOP officials in there states. Those states include Alabama, Ohio, Utah, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. In Texas, the state leading the lawsuit against Obama's actions, the sheriffs in Dallas, Houston, Austin, and the border city of El Paso all signed on in support of the president's executive action. The Texas attorney general's office, which is handling the case in court, did not respond to a request for comment on the public safety issue.</p>
<p>"How taking action that will encourage people to step forward and cooperate endangers public safety is beyond me and most police chiefs around the country that you would talk to," says Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo.</p>
<p>Nina Perales, a lawyer at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a Latino civil rights group, is representing undocumented immigrants seeking to join the lawsuit in support of the administration. She suspects that the states' public safety argument was meant as a direct appeal to Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who is presiding over the case.</p>
<p>Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/judge-immigration-case-had-criticized-us-policy-070031539--politics.html" target="_blank">an opinion</a> in 2013 in which he excoriated the Department of Homeland Security for reuniting a child brought to the country illegally by a smuggler with her parents who were living illegally in the United States. "The DHS, instead of enforcing our border security laws, actually assisted the criminal conspiracy in achieving its illegal goals," Hanen wrote.</p>
<p>That case, <em>United States v. Nava-Martinez</em>, is cited multiple times in the states' brief against the government, though it was not raised in oral arguments. But Perales, who watched the oral arguments last month, said she isn't sure that quoting Hanen's previous decisions is going to tip the scales in favor of the states.</p>
<p>"I imagine that Texas thought that they could gain a strategic advantage by being in front of Judge Hanen because he had criticized some aspect of government decision making," she said. "I think the states made a mistake by assuming that this judge would be tilted one way or the other."</p></body></html>
PoliticsCrime and JusticeImmigrationTop StoriesWed, 04 Feb 2015 11:15:06 +0000Pema Levy269461 at http://www.motherjones.comStep Aside, Steve King: Meet the Right's Most Powerful Immigration Foehttp://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/jeff-sessions-immigration-reform-border
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<html><body><p><span class="section-lead">It wasn't long ago</span> that Sen. Jeff Sessions was waging a lonely battle against comprehensive immigration reform. ABC News called the Alabama Republican a "<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/jeff-sessions-kill-immigration-reform-bill-thing/story?id=19311727&amp;singlePage=true">lone wolf</a>" in his dogged quest to kill the Senate's immigration reform bill, which passed the upper chamber in June 2013 on a 68-32 bipartisan vote. At one point, Sessions introduced an amendment <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/jeff-sessions-good-day-immigration-hearing/story?id=19176554">to slash</a> the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country legally&mdash;not even Texas firebrand Ted Cruz voted for it.</p>
<p>But Sessions' days of fighting immigration reform from the sidelines are over. Last week, he became chair of the Senate judiciary subcommittee on immigration. The new face of Republican immigration policy has yet to make headlines like his anti-reform ally in the House, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), whose inflammatory rhetoric about undocumented immigrants ("<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/politics/king-tweet-deportables/index.html" target="_blank">deportables</a>") has made him a household name within the Latino community. But Sessions is just as hardline as King. And now his party has place him in a high profile position in the nation's ongoing and contentious immigration debate.</p>
<p>"By choosing Sessions, Senate Republicans are handing over the agenda and a megaphone to their leading anti-immigrant voice," America's Voice, a pro-immigration-reform group, said in a seven-page memo circulated to reporters that enumerated Sessions' anti-immigration track record.</p></body></html>
<p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/politics/2015/01/jeff-sessions-immigration-reform-border"><strong><em>Continue Reading &raquo;</em></strong></a></p>PoliticsImmigrationThe RightTop StoriesThu, 29 Jan 2015 11:15:06 +0000Pema Levy269076 at http://www.motherjones.comGaza in Arizona: How Israeli High-Tech Firms Will Up-Armor the US-Mexico Borderhttp://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/us-mexico-border-gaza-israeli-tech-wall%20
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<html><body><p><em>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175947/" target="_blank">story</a> first appeared on the </em><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" target="_blank">TomDispatch</a><em> website.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" target="_blank"><span class="inline inline-left"><img alt="" class="image image-preview" height="33" src="http://motherjones.com/files/images/tdispatch-notch.jpg" title="" width="100"></span></a></p>
<p>It was October 2012. Roei Elkabetz, a brigadier general for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was explaining his country's border policing strategies. In his PowerPoint presentation, a photo of the enclosure wall that isolates the Gaza Strip from Israel clicked onscreen. "We have learned lots from Gaza," he told the audience. "It's a great laboratory."</p>
<p>Elkabetz was speaking at a border technology conference and fair surrounded by a dazzling display of technology&mdash;the components of his boundary-building lab. There were surveillance balloons with high-powered cameras floating over a desert-camouflaged armored vehicle made by Lockheed Martin. There were seismic sensor systems used to detect the movement of people and other wonders of the modern border-policing world. Around Elkabetz, you could see vivid examples of where the future of such policing was heading, as imagined not by a dystopian science fiction writer but by some of the top corporate techno-innovators on the planet.</p>
<p>Swimming in a sea of border security, the brigadier general was, however, not surrounded by the Mediterranean but by a parched West Texas landscape. He was in El Paso, a 10-minute walk from the wall that separates the United States from Mexico.</p>
<p>Just a few more minutes on foot and Elkabetz could have watched green-striped US Border Patrol vehicles inching along the trickling Rio Grande in front of Ciudad Juarez, one of Mexico's largest cities filled with US factories and the dead of that country's drug wars. The Border Patrol agents whom the general might have spotted were then being up-armored with a lethal combination of surveillance technologies, military hardware, assault rifles, helicopters, and drones. This once-peaceful place was being transformed into what Timothy Dunn, in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0292715803/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20"><em>The Militarization of the US Mexico Border</em></a>, terms a state of "low-intensity warfare."</p>
<p><br><strong>The Border Surge</strong></p>
<p>On November 20, 2014, President Obama <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/20/remarks-president-address-nation-immigration">announced</a> a series of executive actions on immigration reform. Addressing the American people, he referred to bipartisan immigration legislation <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/s168">passed</a> by the Senate in June 2013 that would, among other things, further up-armor the same landscape in what's been termed&mdash;in language adopted from recent US war zones&mdash;a "border surge." The president bemoaned the fact that the bill had been stalled in the House of Representatives, hailing it as a "compromise" that "reflected common sense." It would, he pointed out, "have doubled the number of Border Patrol agents, while giving undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship."</p></body></html>
<p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/politics/2015/01/us-mexico-border-gaza-israeli-tech-wall%20"><strong><em>Continue Reading &raquo;</em></strong></a></p>PoliticsImmigrationMilitaryTechTom DispatchMon, 26 Jan 2015 22:51:42 +0000Todd Miller and Gabriel M. Schivone268861 at http://www.motherjones.comThe Obama Administration Pledged to Fix the Asylum System for Women. 6 Years Later…http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/legal-challenges-for-women-asylum-seekers
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<html><body><p>I meet Melanie, 23, at the DC office of the immigration attorney who's been handling her quest for for asylum here in the United States. She is zaftig and chic. Her fingernails, big enamel earrings, and the tips of her Afro are all the same brilliant shade of scarlet. From our chitchat, I can tell that on a normal day, she is calm, and collected. But not today. We're here for her to recall the worst hours of her life.</p>
<p>It started when she was 19, Melanie tells me. Josef, a powerful friend of her father's who is the head of her sub-Saharan country's intelligence service, began sending her lascivious text messages: I love you. Will you go out with me? <em>You have to see me</em>.</p>
<p>When she changed her number, she says, he used his power as intelligence chief to find her new number. (At her request, we have changed both their names and withheld the name of her country.) When she ignored him, men in street clothes pulled her into a car and drove her to his office, where he threatened her with death if she didn't sleep with him. Her father soon lost his position with a national company, Melanie says, and he spent weeks in jail. How about the police? I ask. Melanie snorts. "There's no calling the police. The police work for him."</p>
<p>Last summer, according to the account Melanie provided in her asylum application, Josef called her while she was jogging. He said he would see her soon. Two men appeared and dragged Melanie into a car as she writhed and screamed for help. They drove her to the outskirts of the city, where Josef was waiting. "Now you understand that I get what I want," he said, Melanie recalls. He kicked her in the stomach and raped her.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2013, two months after her rape, Melanie obtained a student visa to attend college in the United States. But she didn't have the money to go to school. Instead, upon getting off the plane, she petitioned the government to grant her asylum.</p>
<p>And with that, Melanie became part of a roiling dispute over the place of women in asylum law.</p></body></html>
<p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/politics/2015/01/legal-challenges-for-women-asylum-seekers"><strong><em>Continue Reading &raquo;</em></strong></a></p>PoliticsHuman RightsImmigrationSex and GenderTop Storiesweekly featureMon, 26 Jan 2015 11:30:08 +0000Molly Redden267476 at http://www.motherjones.com